As flu cases wind down, a medical health officer with the Saskatchewan Health Authority summarizes the season by saying flu made a significant comeback this winter.  Dr. David Torr explains that in the past two seasons there were more cases of COVID than the flu, but this year it was the reverse.  It was an expected trend because what happens in the southern hemisphere during their winter, which is our summer, usually then happens in the northern hemisphere the next winter, and that’s what happened.

He says, “We started out with about a one per cent test positivity rate and then it shot up to 12 per cent, and you know, five per cent is usually our threshold for significant spreading of illness within a community.  The milder weather experienced earlier this winter doesn’t impact the number of flu cases. Dr. Torr states that the virus spreads when people are indoors, so it doesn’t have to be extremely cold for more people to be indoors than there would be in the summer months.

Dr. Torr says COVID-19 is still circulating. He understands that some people feel that it went away, but it hasn’t. It is still very much with us. Torr says, it isn’t in the numbers seen previously, but it persists.